A prognosis and impact factor analysis of DC-CIK cell therapy for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma undergoing postoperative TACE

ABSTRACTDendritic cell-cytokine-induced killer (DC-CIK) cell therapy has been experimentally implemented for enhancing anti-tumoral immunity in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) undergoing postoperative transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (POTACE). We performed a retrospective study to evaluate the clinical efficacies of DC-CIK cell therapy and its correlations with several immune factors of the primary tumors. The overall survival time of HCC patients with HBV infection in the study group (POTACE plus DC-CIK cell therapy) was significantly longer than that of the control group (POTACE alone). The expression level of PD-L1 but not the tumor-infiltrated CD8 and CD4 T cells in the tumor tissues showed significant negative correlations with relapse-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS), which was also an independent prognostic factor for the five-years' suvival of patients with HCC receiving POTACE treatment. Furthermore, our study validated that PD-L1 expression was significantly inv...